Washington State Volunteer Service Awards
What are the Washington State Volunteer Service Awards?
The Washington State Volunteer Service Awards seek to honor the many acts of kindness individuals, families and service groups perform in communities across the state of Washington.
Formerly known as the Govnernor's Volunteer Service Awards, ceremonies were held exclusively on the Washington State Capitol Campus in Olympia. After disucssion with commissioners, staff and community stakeholders, Serve Washington decided to make particpation more equitable and accessible by removing barriers for award recipients (such as time and costs associated with travel), by participating in local and regional recognition activities honoring each recipient. In 2023, Serve Washington relaunched its volunteer recgnition program as the Washington State Volunteer Service Awards. Serve Washington believes that volunteer recognition should be acessible to everyone, regardless of location or financial situation.
This annual event gives Serve Washington a chance to celebrate the incredible impcat volunteers make in communities across our state while inspiring others to serve. Below are some answers to FAQs about the awards.
Get notified when the award nomination period opens! Subscribe to email updates to receive notices when the nomination period opens. After entering your email, make sure the "Washington State Volunteer Service Awards" box is checked.
Nominations are open to anyone who has performed any type of volunteerism—formal or non-formal—in the past year.
We seek nominations that demonstrate all types of volunteerism: neighbors helping neighbors, giving time to hospitals, disaster preparedness efforts, supporting food banks, delivering meals, participation in national service and those who informally give their time, care or assistance to meet challenges.
We’re looking for nominees of all ages, backgrounds and abilities. Through the Washington State Volunteer Service Awards, we want to recognize individuals and groups who reflect the diversity of our state for their efforts toward effectively addressing issues that face their communities.
The nomination period for the 2025 Washington State Volunteer Service awards is now closed. We'll post a link to the nomination form here when the nomination period is open.
Before you fill out the form, we encourage you to review the nomination guidelines [PDF].
If you have questions or need the form and guidelines in an alternate format, call (360) 902-0656 or email us.
No! You may nominate as many different people or volunteer programs as you want. However, you may only nominate them once per open nomination period.
Feel free to download and share a flyer to to share with your networks:
Washington State Volunteer Service Awards Flyer [PDF]
A panel of Serve Washington commissioners and community members will select the award recipients.
Awards will be presented to one individual and one group of volunteers or volunteer program in each of the following regions (18 awards total):
- Peninsula/Coastal: Clallam, Jefferson, Grays Harbor, Pacific and Kitsap counties
- South Puget Sound: Mason, Thurston, Pierce and Lewis counties
- Southwest: Cowlitz, Skamania, Clark and Wahkiakum counties
- South Central: Benton, Franklin, Kittitas, Klickitat, Walla Walla and Yakima counties
- Southeast: Adams, Whitman, Garfield, Columbia and Asotin counties
- Northeast: Ferry, Stevens, Pend Orielle, Lincoln, and Spokane counties
- North Central: Okanogan, Chelan, Douglas and Grant counties
- North Puget Sound: King and Snohomish counties
- Northwest: Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, and Island counties
Serve Washington will notify nominators if the person they nominated was selected.
Serve Washington will only inform nominees who were selected. Howerver, Serve Washington will list all other nominees under "Honorable Mentions" on our Recipients and Honorable Mentions page.
Serve Washington will work with the nominator and the award recipient(s) to verify volunteer service details and offer support to honor award recipients through local or regional recognition efforts.
Serve Washington held a virtual information session Oct. 15, 2024 that gave an overview of the nomination form, process and to answer questions.
View and listen to the recording on YouTube.
View the Washington State Volunteer Service Awards informatrion session PowerPoint [PDF].
If you have any additional questions or need materials in an alternative format, please send an email to servewa@ofm.wa.gov or call (360) 902-0656.
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